ghost of miles

Amazon UK charged me for the Hayes set more than a week ago, but now the charge has disappeared from my account—very odd. Website still tells me it will arrive in early January, but it has not shipped yet, even though AZ UK shows it as now being in stock.

A perfect end to this band’s run of albums:

Disc 3 of the Los Angeles Nuggets box-set, which I know we've discussed before--but damn, is it good:

Sad to see Betances go, but glad that he’s at least staying in New York. If he remains healthy he should be a very good closer for you guys. Warning: he’s terrible at holding runners on base. Maybe the Mets can improve him in that regard. At his best he’s overpowering. Are they no longer looking to move Price because of his salary? There were certainly a lot of trade rumors swirling several weeks ago... but otoh I don’t see how they field a rotation next year without Price, unless they plan on dealing for another, cost-friendlier arm.

Yes, would definitely like to eventually track that one down as well. I’ll need to brush up on my French!

Disc 1 of this Christmas present from my girlfriend:

Disc 4 of the new Mobley Mosaic. Still crazy to think that A Slice Of The Top stayed on the shelf for 13 years before being released.

Up for the holidays! (And because we re-aired it this past week) A Cool Christmas

Revisiting Cafe Bleu this afternoon, as a matter of fact!

Disc 3 of the new Mobley right now, after having listened to disc 3 of the new Herman earlier. So nice to have fresh Mosaics in the house the Sunday before Christmas!

Woody Herman Columbia 1945-47 Mosaic sealed copy for $109 on eBay. (Don’t know the seller, just came across the listing while searching for another Herman release.) Don’t know if that’s considered a bargain, but seems like a decent price for a brand-new OOP 7-CD set. EDIT: Maybe not such a bargain. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, given all of the evidence presented in the falling-Mosaic-market thread, but still a surprise to see that level of pricing for an OOP 7-CD set. Glad if it makes it more affordable for those who want to hear and acquire these collections, though. Loren Schoenberg’s notes for the Herman Columbia Mosaic are outstanding.

All kidding aside, it’s an excellent biography. Highly recommended! Pretty sure there’s extensive discussion of it in a previous thread.

Well, it’s definitely proving to be as divisive in its own way as The Last Jedi (and a mirror image of it on Rotten Tomatoes, where TLJ has a 91/43 score differential between critics and audiences; as of this moment Rise Of Skywalker has a 57 “rotten” rating from critics, worse even than Attack Of The Clones—really?! but an audience score of 86). The reviews had made me rather wary going in, so I was pleasantly surprised. (Richard Brody called it a “soulless robotic spectacle” or some such, confirming for me yet again that as a film critic he’s on some planet where wrong-headed overintellectual pronouncements are evidently coin of the realm. He also is apparently a prequel revisionist. Those films were absolutely god-awful—talk about soulless!-badly-written, badly-directed, badly-acted, though Revenge Of The Sith has its moments.) I thought Abrams wrapped things up about as well as anybody could have, and I say that as someone who had appreciation for what Rian Johnson was up to in The Last Jedi (though that film, despite its high praise from critics, had its fair share of clunky issues too). For me Star Wars has always been a popcorn series, and I guess I felt as if Abrams brought back the butter and salt, after the glossy but bland no-flavor pap of the prequels. Edit: should add that I do think Rogue One is better than any of the “new trilogy” movies. I wasn’t that interested in Solo, so never got around to seeing it.

Excellent Williams collection! Finishing this right now:

What did you think? My friend Pete and I took his two boys to see it Thursday night, and we all loved it.

There’s definitely a bit of a sag in the middle of the set with the MGM material. Sultanof makes a case for some of it, but in general I don’t think it’s at the level of what precedes or follows. Starting through the box a second time this morning... very grateful that Mosaic managed to get this out.

Yes, but don’t be fooled—it’s in the Really Real Book, as opposed to the Real Fake Book, and certainly not the Fake Fake Book!

The book is out on a great many things!

This is true--it's simply further indication of the CD's decline as a salable product. An American artist now based in Europe came through a few months ago and brought his new release to the studio with him--only on vinyl, no CD. Fortunately we still have a record player in the on-air studio that I fought vigorously to retain several years ago. He said his CDs simply weren't selling any more, that most people wanted either vinyl, downloads, or streaming. I still much prefer CDs to anything else, but this trend has been going on for quite awhile now. In the next couple of years we'll be digitalizing our jazz library, though we'll be keeping the CDs (just as we've kept almost all of our vinyl, which I still use from time to time).

The sound seems quite good—mostly it was just a pleasure to revisit those two 1963 albums (coupled together on disc 1), which I think Blumenthal rightly contends are in some ways a continuation/culmination of Mobley’s 1960-61 albums. Just got back from the new Star Wars movie and am contemplating a late-night spin of disc 2.

The new Mobley, at last! Disc 1.

The copy of the Mobley set that I ordered for WFIU's station library just landed, but I'm not going to have time to look at it till later in the afternoon.

Poor guy must be exhausted—is he ever going to get that IRS levy paid off?

We’ve re-aired Bud’s Buds this week, and I’m bumping the thread up a bit early in honor of Barry Harris’ 90th birthday today. (Toshiko Akiyoshi turned 90 on Thursday.)